


Left Behind in a Past Life

by hannathing



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 22:17:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1444846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannathing/pseuds/hannathing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He feels like,<br/>A stranger has come in the night,<br/>And stolen his life,<br/>And left him with this."<br/>-- Feathers by Man Man</p>
            </blockquote>





	Left Behind in a Past Life

**Author's Note:**

> This is a lot of Hale Family Feels, and "Hanna Adores Derek Hale and His Sassy No Habla in 3B".

He learns Spanish while he’s young, his grasp of English still tremulous as best. He likes the weight of it in his mouth, the way it rolls around between his teeth before becoming sounds and words. He likes the way it falls off his tongue, full vowels, trilled consonants. 

Patrick teases him when he sits with Cora, watching Dora. She only likes it because they’re names are the same. He likes it so he can pick up the few Spanish words, dropped like bread crumbs. Derek doesn't care that Patrick teases him. Patrick is 9, and gets to go to school in town. He doesn't have a wolf inside, doesn't have to fight for control, hold back tears and claws when he’s upset. Derek is 12, and stays home with Aunt Claire.

Aunt Claire tries to teach him as much as she can. She smiles wide when he tells her “te amo”. They eventually join a small community run club at the local college, for children who want to learn. There, Derek makes friends with a boy who speaks Spanish as a first tongue, but can’t spell. He asks to come to play at Derek’s, and Derek turns towards Aunt Claire, asking her quietly if he can. She says to ask mommy when they go home. Derek nods, serious.

He absorbs the Spanish like a dying tree, sucking it all in deep, storing the words away in a place he’ll never forget. When he’s 14, he’s good enough to go to school, and gets placed in Advanced Spanish, with the seniors, many of them Laura’s friends. When he starts getting bored with Spanish at 15, Peter starts teaching him Russian. He learns from Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina. Peter says the English versions are useless, don’t contain the same nuances and skill. He also says they’ll tackle German together, start with Faust and The Metamorphosis.

They never do. All of Peter’s books burn in the fire, with the rest of his family.

Laura and Derek leave. He gets his GED, Laura drops out from college. They work, sleep like the dead, and run in between. Run away from the scent of ash and dead, from the heat of a burning home and lives on their faces. They still feel it on their backs. Derek chokes on the ashes of Aunt Claire whenever he tries to speak Spanish, stops breathing when Dora comes on TV.

It isn't until he’s 22, working construction at night on a busy road, that he speaks Spanish again. Many of the men around him chatter as they work, in Spanish more often than anything else. A man gets hurt. In between screams of pain and terror, Derek leeches what pain he can. He calmly asks what hurts, what his name is, who they should contact and what hospital would like to go to. The foreman watches, and later commends Derek for his quick thinking.

They don’t stay around much longer after that.

Somehow, Derek gets a job helping in an accountant’s office. Its tax season, and he sits at a desk all day, directing calls and telling accountant’s when their 1:30 appointment is in. He tries not to think, spends a lot of time staring out the window, fingers itching. He avoids complaining to Laura, knows if he does it means another move, another long silent drive, another day where he proves he destroyed their lives.

One day, a harried woman, young with three squalling children, comes in. She’s holding a toddler in one arm, and a folder of mismatched documents in the other. The accountant keeps telling her he can’t understand her, and that her documents have been mixed up, the names are wrong and he can’t help her. The woman keeps shaking her head, trying to hand the documents to him. Derek finally stands and says quietly in Spanish what’s wrong with her documents, tells her where to get them fixed, and to bring them back after. There’s a moment of silence, that is quickly broken by one of the older children falling off a chair he had been climbing on.

Derek goes to the boy, scolds him, tells him to behave and be good to his mother. Tells him she won’t always be there, so cherish her now. 

The woman smiles, thanks him, rushes out the door, trailing two children like ducklings. The accountant stares at Derek for long moments. He gets a raise.

He also forgets about the taste and smell of ash for a few moments.

**Author's Note:**

> Potentially more to come. Got this cool scene in my head with Scott trying and failing to invite his abuela to something. It might be stereky later on, I don't know. My life is being ruined by assholes in love.
> 
> Come tumble with me! http://haleswallows.tumblr.com/
> 
> PS Song says she and her, changed pronouns because I'm a loser. I'd leave it if this was more about Laura. I would love to write Laura BUT JEFF DAVIS STILL HASNT GIVEN US ANYTHING ON HERRRR


End file.
